Renaissance Cutlery in its leather case in the form of a trout

Italian, ca 1570
Bone, steel, etched and gilt; case: leather, partly polychromed and gilt
Length of knives ca 20.5 cm
Length of case ca 34.5 cm

Provenance: Belgium, private collection

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What at first sight bears a striking resemblance to a preserved trout is actually a leather case that holds a complete set of superlative knives with bone handles and fire-gilt blades that are partly etched. The form and decoration of the knife handles and blades are characteristic of cutlery from the latter half of the sixteenth century. The Green Vault in Dresden holds a virtually identical case in the form of a trout, which also contains six knives. They are similar in design to the set discussed here but the knife handles are made of mother-of-pearl rather than bone. This particular type of haft is typical Italian knives dating from about 1570. That this is so is confirmed by a virtually identical set of cutlery in a case in the form of a fish, which is held at the Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Leipzig. The hafts of the knives in Leipzig bear the Medici coat of arms as well as the initials MDE, which attest that Cosimo I de’ Medici (1519–1574) was the person who commissioned them. This verifies that both the knife set in Leipzig and the set discussed here were made in Italy ca 1570 at the latest.